"Wii Sports" hits home run

By Joe Johnson
The Collegian

Here’s a phrase that gets thrown around in the gaming industry often: “This game appeals to both gamers and non-gamers alike!” That just sounds good, doesn’t it? Anyone can play this game, because everyone will love it.

“Wii Sports,” the premiere launch title on the Nintendo Wii, is the only game that this tagline truly applies to. If you’ve heard all of the hype about the Wii controller and its gyroscope technology, where it can actually detect how you move it through the air and interpret that into the game play itself, then this is the title that will make it a reality.

Really, it’s quite easy.

Let’s play some tennis. Hand the controller to a friend. It looks like a white television remote with several buttons on it.

“Well, how do I play?” he or she will invariably ask, gawking at it.

Press the ‘A’ button to start, then just play tennis. It controls exactly like you think it would.

The ball is thrown into the air with a gentle upwards tossing movement; then you overhand it right across the net. The Wiimote becomes the tennis racket in your hand, lobbing and returning volleys with simple wrist movements.

Don’t worry about the other buttons or moving the character into position. The game takes care of that, putting all of the emphasis on how you hit the ball.

Each game mode available in “Wii Sports” uses the remote in a similar fashion. When you play baseball, you use the remote as a bat, holding it in both hands and swinging with all your might.

For boxing, you hold the Wiimote and its accessory, the Nunchuck, in each hand and punch at the screen.

Bowling has you holding down a single button, then winding up and releasing straight down the alley way.

By now, I hope you can guess how golf works.

Each one is deceptively simple, but thoroughly engaging and intuitive. Within minutes, anyone can pick up this game and run with it.

When my brother got it for Christmas along with the system, my video-game-fearing parents were even jumping in, playing tennis and generally getting their Wii on.

This leads to the best part of “Wii Sports”: multiplayer mode. Playing alone with your Wii — yeah, I get it — is great and all, but this is a title that needs friends to truly be enjoyable.

Unlike any other console game you will ever buy, Wii Sports is fun even if you aren’t actually playing the game.

Marvel as your friends swing wildly like gimpy apes, dancing around and generally making fools of themselves without any alcohol involved. Any party instantly becomes more fun when everyone looks like an idiot.

In a lot of ways it is this interaction with your friends that makes “Wii Sports” a worthwhile purchase, despite some drawbacks. If you are a hardcore fan of EA Sports titles, you’ll probably be put off by the overall simplicity of this game.

It also isn’t the most graphically impressive game around, paling in comparison to anything on the Xbox 360 or the Playstation 3.

But for pure ease of use, “Wii Sports” is definitely worth your time.

Grade: A-

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